Party Planner

I'm glad to hear that everybody is ok and doing well! Me and Elder Pope had a good week. We are now on the last week of the change. On Thursday I hit my one year mark! Time is moving so fast!

We had to enter early in the house on Monday and hardly got to work on Saturday because of the copa de america. Chile won! Everybody was screaming and honking their horns. It was the first time in the history that Chile had won it all. Everybody was celebrating all night. Literally all night there was honking and screaming. A few people in church added the game as a part of their testimony the next day.

On Tuesday we had interviews with President Videla. Our zone is pretty big so it took awhile to get through everybody, but it was good to talk to him. We only have interviews one time every two changes (3 months) so it was something I was looking forward to. 

Josè, one of our investigators is doing really good. His wife just had their little baby daughter. We were going to go see her but we didn't have enough time. But he is really cool and is really interested. 

On Friday Elder Pope and I were in charge of a family night in the church. We set up a good scavenger hunt and people were getting really into it. Running from clue to clue and searching everywhere to find the paper telling them where to go next.  I need to major in party planning when I get back. 

1 corinthians 15

 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. 

Have a great week!

a bed fights back

I'm glad that everybody is doing well. Good luck to Marie and Emma in college and I loved the picture of Paul with Jimmer. Mom I hope you are ok with dad in India for a month.  I laughed when you said you could hear the spooky Halloween cd all through the night whenever dad is out of town.  We're all ready for the Chile game tonight. Last game when Chile won, everybody went crazy! The streets and apartments explode with the loudest cheering youve ever heard! I think the same will happen tonight if not more crazy!

We had a good week here. We lost a little bit of time this week because we have to go in early to our departments when Chile plays in the Copa de America. But we know exactly how many goals Chile scores because everybody goes crazy!

One of our favorite people to visit is Marco. He's about forty years old and is super happy. Like, always really happy. We usually always start off lessons with a hymn. I'm not sure if we can keep singing hymns with him because he gets way into it, like Im not exagerating here one bit his whole body and soul start rocking out to the hymn,  and me and Pope laugh every time. Marco is also friends with other people we visit throughout the week, so at church we all hang out together. It's our little crew. It a little crew of people who need a friend and I love that we are in it ;)

On Thursday I was told that I was going to give a talk in Sacrament. So I spent a lot of time preparing . Yesterday I gave the talk in church. I was nervous about it but a  lot  of people told me I did a good job and a few even told me my Spanish was perfect, that was music to my american boy ears.  I talked about the Sacrament. Later that night we went on visits with elders quorum. It was a good time. We visited two families. We gave the sacrament to a 98 year old lady which was a really sacred thing. It was a good experience because I went with somebody that I don't talk  to a lot, but after the two visits we were best buddies :) Everyone need to feel loved and accepted.  Ive spent to much time worrying that I didnt speak good enough or that I was socially awkward, but when I stop caring about myself and just make sure everyone else feels good and has a friend, I feel happiest too.

Gabriela, our investigator, is still doing really well. We still have the same problem of not being able to find her because she works so much. We taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ yesterday and it went really smooth. Her little kids are awesome. Diego, her seven year old, told us the best story ever of how he got in a fight with his bed. He re-enacted how he felt like his bed was purposefully pushing at him trying to make him uncomfortable, so he took a few punches at bed, and low and behold bed started fighting back.  I was swallowing my laughs it was so hilarious.  Me and Pope have been together for a long time and we have so many funny experiences and stories together. He's a really good missionary and has truly become a close friend.

 35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

So Im hungry and thirsty a lot, like a lot which is why this scripture really speaks to me.  It feels miraculous to have some of those needs permanently filled, even in a spiritual way.  I love you guys.  Go Chile!  Have a positive happy week!

Hot soup on a hard day

This week was another cold week in Santiago. It's freezing in the morning but not too bad in the afternoon. The weather is pretty extreme.


Everyone here is excited about the copa de america. Chile played against Ecuador on thursday. We weren't allowed to watch it, but we could tell when chile scored a goal because because everyone went crazy, it was actually cool to hear the cheering from the street.


On Sunday Camila and Josè both went to the church for the first time. It was so awesome! Finally Camila went to church! Her little baby started behaving bad at the end of sacrament :) so she went home a little early. Josè went to church in L.A. and said he felt really comfortable in the church and that it was pretty much the same as california. We visited them both later Sunday and they said that they both enjoyed going to church and felt really calm the whole time!


We visited Gabriela and her little kids last night also. The little kids love me and Elder Pope. They are gold but it's really hard to visit them, because Gabriela literally works all day from monday to saturday. We taught them the plan of salvation and Gabriela told us that she felt like it was all true, especially when we talked about the atonement.


So our ward is huge, the only ward in our mission with 8 missionaries. Me and Elder Pope are the only elders so we often go and give blessings to people in all over the ward. We've had so many good experiences with giving blessings to the members here in the ward.  This will sound strange but there have been moments here I felt pure warm fire flow through my hands into someone's body like God's love was being transported to them through me.

Friday was rough.   We had important appointments that we either missed due to time constraints or fell through. I was so upset because I felt like we wasted everyone's time.    As we were walking home in the dark I felt like a total failure.  As we were turning the corner I bumped into a man on accident.  He got in my face and started screaming and swearing at me.   It shouldn't have affected me so much but it did.   At that moment a man walked out of his restaurant and invited Elder Pope and I inside.   He said God told me to bring you into my restaurant for some hot soup.   And that is exactly what he did,  free of charge.   As I ate it I thought about our failure day and thought we don't deserve this.  AS SOON as I thought that,  I felt God whisper to me failure days are the ones he most enjoys blessing us with warm soup.   My God is an awesome God.


Our goal as mortals is to gain the mind of Christ, to believe what he believes, to think what he thinks, to say what he says, to do what he does, and to be as he is. Bruce R. McConkie


Love you guys, have a great week!

Backflips for my friends

This week we have changes. I'll be here in Simòn Bolìvar with Elder Pope for at least one more change. I'm really happy with it, we had a really good week and have a lot of hope for this change.

On Friday I had my best contact of all my mission. All of our plans for the morning failed and so we decided to do contacts. I began to talking to somebody in the street and he was immediately really friendly with us. He told us that he has only been in Chile for a month because he was living in California. He was sharing with the missionaries there and was about to get baptized but moved to Chile. It was too good to be true! We do so many contacts and usually people don't have any time, or just blow us off. So it was amazing that we were able to find Josè, the contact. Happiness looks different  on my mission.  It looks like someones face lighting up when we talk about Jesus Christ.  I hope I always remember this amazing feeling.

One of the members in our ward teaches karate in the chapel every Thursday night. He has two young students who always go and the mom always goes with them. We were finally able to find the mom and schedule an appointment with her. Last night we had an awesome lesson with her and her kids. The spirit was so strong in the room, I always feel surprised by the warm confirmation of God to his children, even though I should never be surprised. They all accepted baptismal dates so we were really happy about that.

Insert backflips on our lawn here.

I've talked about Francisco and his mom Angelina before. They both were recently baptized and have such strong testimonies. Angelina came with us on a visit and bore her testimony of the word of wisdom and how she was able to overcome all of her addictions. They invited us over for dinner one night with all their family and shared their testimonies the whole time. They are just filled with love and want everybody to feel the same as they do. It was a very healing inspiring night for me.

Have a wonderful week!

 We are the creatures of our thinking. We can talk ourselves into defeat or we can talk ourselves into victory. Gordon B. Hinckley

Baby exercise!

We had a good week here in Simòn Bolìvar. Things are all starting to come together well in the sector. Plus, it turns out I have amazing natural ability with the rubix cube.  It is becoming quite impressive.  Im making my companion proud.

Our investigator Camila is doing really good. She told us that she got an answer from the Book of Mormon. We were so happy to hear that. She told us that she really feels like she is on the right path. It makes me want to do back flips in the yard while Paul and Luke gasp, it seriously makes me that happy. The only problem is that she doesn't have a lot of motivation to go to church. She feels worried that people are going to judge her for being single and having her little baby.  It hurts my heart to put myself in her shoes and feel judged for a life circumstance that is crushing you and you are working as hard as you can and people judge you. By the way, her baby is like the chubbiest baby in the world. He's so chubby that the doctor said she needs to do exercises with him. En serio!  This delights me.  He's like seven months old. Anyways were working a lot with her and she is very hopeful.

There is also Bruno. Elder Pope and I are trying to do better with teaching lessons with the members. And we had a really good lesson with Bruno and a member. It was so nice to have somebody with us that has had very similar experiences as Bruno, who could help him. The member told Bruno that maybe everything doesn't make perfect sense, but what is important is that he feels that it's right. Sometimes truth in your heart and spirit IS MORE CORRECT THAN TRUTH IN YOUR MIND.  This is a powerful thought I am thinking alot about. 

 14 For, if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you;

And everybody knows Mr. Positive is going to require a lot of forgiveness over his lifetime.  This may be my only hope. :)  I hope everybody has a good week!

Seeing is healing

It was so good to talk to the fam yesterday! Good to see everybody is doing good and things are still the same back home :)

We had a really good week this week. Time sure is flying. 

Yesterday after talking with the family we went over and visited with one of our best investigators, Camila. She is such a good investigator because she always keeps her commitments that we extend to her, which makes it really easy to teach her. There is not anything we have ever asked her to read, or try, or do that she has not promptly followed through with.   But after talking with her for awhile we found out she had a problem keeping one of the commandments. So we decided to talk about that last night. We were a little bit worried because we didn't know how she would react. But things went great. The lesson went really good. She is twenty five years old and has a little baby. She lives alone so she has to work a lot to provide for herself and her baby. She literally works herself to the bone for the bare minimum survival of herself and her baby.   I'm pretty sure she is one of the best people in the entire world. I'm reminded how much God loves every single one of his children, and understands and has total mercy for each circumstance. 

It was really strange we had a reoccuring conversation with various people this week. All of the conversations were about how in developing a relationship with Christ they were able to realize faults and deep spiritual wounds that they never knew existed, and they were able to be healed.  Seeing the problem is the first step.  If we cant see it or admit it, we cant take any steps to heal it. About four or five people mentioned this theme to us. I definitely agree with it. I have found on my mission that the awakening in my soul of wounds and weaknesses has been greater.  But along with that, my ability to surrender these things to God and let him heal me has been much greater.  He is so good.

I couldn't be with my mom this mothers day but I did get to talk to her. I'm so grateful for who she is and all she has done in my life. I'll let Elder Holland explain how I feel.

Indeed heaven never seems closer than when we see the love of God manifested in the kindness and devotion of people so good and so pure that angelic is the only word that comes to mind.

Mom you dont get any credit but today you get some from me, your best kid.

 I love you guys, have a great week!

Meeting Needs

One more week until Mothers day! I'm way excited to talk to all of you guys next week!

So I'll start off with a crazy story. A lot of crazy stuff happen to me and Elder Pope here. So were knocking on a door waiting for somebody to come out. The wheel of a passing car all of the sudden pops off. The wheel almost nailed these two people walking in the street and the car nearly got in a crash. But the two people who were nearly hit acted like nothing happened. And the dude driving the car got out really casually, and took a taxi while his car was in the middle of the road. It was insane! Sometimes people are a little to laid back here.

We had a pretty good week. This weekend we had Stake Conference. It was really good. The Stake President here is the most amazing person. He's really way to young to be a stake president, but he has talked to our mission before so I knew he was a really good teacher. He gave a really inspiring talk. After Stake Conference, people came up to the stand and shook his hand. BUT after, he went out and shook everybody else's hand.  HE was walking into every room looking for people he hadn't said hi to. I thought it was really cool to see that. He acted like it was his honor to shake everyones hand and have some contact with his stake, not the other way around.  I cant explain why it touched me so much, but it really did.  I hope I always remember the attitude of this coolest Stake President. 

We met Pol this week, from Colombia. He lives with his girlfriend and his little daughter. We met him a few weeks ago but were finally able to find him in his house. We only taught him a little bit but we asked him some good questions, and the spirit was really strong. So we hope he can progress! Please pray for Pol family.

So I have been thinking about this quote alot this week.

 

“Sin is the result of deep and unmet needs.” 
― Spencer W. Kimball

I wonder how two young missionaries in Chile can meet deep and unmet needs.  Sometimes it feels impossible.  Sometimes it feels like the only reason I am here.  God is really meeting my deepest needs here in Chile.  Who would have thought the missionary who came to serve, is actually served in the deepest places of his heart. 

I'll see you guys next week! Enjoy your week!